Gtora, while I tend to agree with this:
"The US and the UK had designs in the works every bit as good as all that german fantasy crap that got posted. "
(Noteably the Centurion)
This gets me a bit stuck:
"By the end of the war the Sherman with the HVSS suspension and 76MM gun was more than a match for the panzer 4, and had a good chance of beating anything else the germans put out."
This is the up-gunned Sherman, because before the gun was inadequate. And the armour still is. It cannot take hits from the Germans.
And BTW, the first Pershing-Tiger shootout went bad....for the Pershing....
Angus,
the centurion was a great tank, but the M26 was not far behind. They also got a single M26 super Pershing with a long 90MM that was about as good as the 88MM KWK 71 gun into combat(for like 3 days). It used separate propellant ammo though so it was slow to load. It also had goofy external springs to counter balance the gun. This was not a production vehicle and if they had produced it it would have had all normal one piece ammo and no external springs.
Had the war gone on with the Germans this tank would have seen production and been a match gun wise with anything the Germans had.
Once we got some M26's to Korea they had no trouble handling any of the Russian armor there. Neither did the Centurion. M26 was also the bases for the M46, and even the M60 MBT traces its roots to this tank.
We also had heavy tanks in the works like the T-29 that would have been a match for the King tiger.
On the first encounter going bad for the M26, any tank can be killed by just about any other tank under the right conditions. At close range the guns on the M26, panther and tiger are going to kill each other, at any angle. The centurion wouldn’t fare any better at these ranges. At these ranges the 76 with high velocity ( cant remember the designation) ammo could penetrate the frontal armor of a panther. I think it was about 200 yards, they could penetrate the front.
I have read accounts of M24 light tanks killing king tigers.
On the Sherman being able to take on Panthers, the HVSS suspension really helped the Sherman’s floatation helping its off road mobility, an area the Tiger and panther Had the older Sherman’s beat when the ground was wet. The new suspension on the Sherman was about twice as wide. Many of these M4A3E8 tanks had armor cut from other tanks including some German tanks and welded to the fronts of the hull and turret sides. Patton had lots of these modifications done from what I have read. This almost doubled the frontal armor. These tanks saw combat at the Battle of the bulge, and did well. One panther could not take on more then 2 or 3 at the rangers fought late in the war. Not to mention German crew qaulity was getting bad. As the war went on the High velocity ammo and 76MM Shermans both got much more common, by the end I am pretty sure almost half the shermans in Europe were 76s if not more.
You also have to compare how easy the Sherman was for us to make, (I was wrong about car makers, it was train car and locomotive makers for the most part)maintain and ship and compare that to the panther and tiger.
The panther was overly complicated.
It was designed in a way that made it hard to maintain.(suspension, to get to the torsion bars, many wheels need to come off, to change a back wheel many wheels need to come off. To fix mine damage etc etc)
It had tranny and final drive issues, and to change a tranny you had to take out the whole drivers compartment and pull the armored hatch plate. This was a commonly needed repair.
The germans didnt figure out the power pack being in the back makes for a lower tank So it has a drive shaft going through the fighting compartment making the panther taller then it needs to be and adds to the complication of maintenance. The Russians got this with the T-34, and all their later tanks, we figured this out by the M26. The Germans didn’t figure it out until the leopard one in the 70s LOL.
Look at all the welds in the hull, think of the time that takes to do, then look at all the welds in the turret.
Look at the goofy road wheels just from a production stand point.
The maybach engine was underpowered easy to damage junk.
Built with slave labor…
Towards the end of its production the Armor quality on Germans tanks was poor and it would shatter from hits that didn’t penetrate.
The size, if you build models, you can put a Tiger 1 and Panther side by side, the Panther is a bigger tank, this means it has thinner armor on the sides because its has so much area to cover in armor. Sure it has great frontal armor, even with a flat face turret it is very a very tough tank from the front.
A Shermans 75MM gun on a basic M4 can kill a Panther from like 1000 yards from the side. The Tiger that was not the case, a Sherman needed to be like 400 or 500 yards.. ( I think, I will have to check some books tonight)
A tank more the size of the Panzer 4 with sloped armor and a better gun would have served germany far better.
So what stands out as good on the panther?
Mobility (when it runs, or when its tranny works, or when it final drivers are not broken, or any other of the other things that could go wrong in its automotive system)
Looks (come on it looks great!)
That great gun and site (maybe the best gun of the war?)
Armor protection from the front
That’s about.
Lets talk about the M4 models
Disadvantages.
Easy for German heavy tanks to kill.
Suspension system not all that good. (even the HVSS wasn’t great, but was ok for the job)
Engine in the back, tranny and final drives in the front, (just like the panther) this was an outdated way to do an engine and tranny, Since the Sherman is really an update of the M3 and was stuck with many of its design flaws, this major one stayed with the Sherman, the drive shaft going through the fighting compartment is why the Sherman is so tall.
The Aircraft Radial was a pain in the bellybutton for the crew and needed plugs and more maintance then a tank should need, but I am sure it was still more reliable then the Panthers Engine. Still you didn’t have to take a Sherman half way apart to work on the final drives or the tranny since the cover for these just ubolts
Poor gun for anti tank work in the 75MM if it has to fight heavy tanks. This gun was a better gun for infantry support since its HE shell was more powerfull then the 76MM guns. (fixed with the 76MM) This gun was also fine for taking out Panzer 4s
There was a run of early shermans with poorly heat treated armor, making it weak. (fixed as soon as it was found)
The early Sherman turret had a thin spot on the left front that later had more armor welded on and then cast on, on later production models.
The early hatches were hard to get in and out of for the driver and co driver. (fixed in later version)
Ammo storage in early models was found to be prone to cause burning and exploding tanks… it was this not the gas motor that gave the Sherman its Zippo nickname. This was fixed by adding wet storage the ammo is surrounded by liquid so if a penetration gets into the ammo it doesn’t go off and destroy the tank totally)
Early main gun site was a parascope they later put in a telescopic site as well.
Advantages.
Easy to make
Easy to ship
Easy to train crews on
Easy to work on
Reliable.
Good crew optics (when they didn’t fog up, later fixed by solid plastic parascopes)
Easy to product in large numbers.
Good infantry support gun 75MM
Decent anti tank gun 76MM (ok when introduced and got better and better as the war went on)
Decent protection from other medium tanks
Good to great engine packages. (a aircraft radial M4, m4a1 M4composite hull, a 500HP V8 M4A3, a twin diesel M4A2, the A57multibank 5 car motors in a star setup M4A4)
The Sherman was a huge design compromise to get something better then the M3 into combat. It filled the gap pretty well and really should be compared to the Panzer 4 not the panther or tiger.
Lets now compare the M26.
Disadvantages
How long it took the army to get into production.
A few shot traps on the turret, like the turret crane mounts (easy fix was to cut them off, and this was a minor shot trap)
Ventilator to small (later fixed)
Ford GAA (GAF?) V8 a bit underpowered for the size of the tank but still reliable.
Travel rest location causes exhaust manifold cracks… later fixed by moving travel lock
Advantages
Low wide design
Powerpack in the back, making for easy engine changes. This is the same design all modern MBT still use.
Torsion bar suspension with paired boggies. (the germans got it half right, I still cant fathom why they did the interleaved road wheels unless it was looks, they did have snazzy crew uniforms as well, I gues you cant go into combat looking like a slob if your german…hehehe)
Good armor over all.
Good gun.
Good crew view options (rotatimg parascopes all over)
Fairly reliable even the first models.
Good mobility
The design didn’t change much in its M26A1 model, it had an improved gun with bore evacuator, to hull parascope mounts removed, the Hull ventilator housing was redesigned and it got a new Muzzle brake. Compare that to the all the changes made in the Panther models. Granted the Pershing is a newer design, but not that much newer, the basic M26 was in development a long time because the army didn’t see a need.
The M46 was the same basic tank with slightly thicker armor and a new powerpack.
German heavy armor being so great is a myth, it was good, but had a lot of disadvantages and is only remembered well because of the looks and Fantastic guns. The Germans would have been better served to produce ton more Panzer 4s then any of the heavies.
